HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILL SHAKESPEARE - GIVEAWAY WINNER

Hello everyone! I'm here again just to post the name of the winner of my Happy Birthday, Will Shakespeare Giveaway.

My congratulations to Elizabeth L.!!! 

She wins the book of her choice from the list I proposed: Richard Paul Roe's The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard's Unknown Travels (Paperback).

Thanks to all the readers who asked to be entered in the giveaway and left their comments. There will be other book giveaway contests soon here at FLY HIGH. Just stay tuned!

ON ROBIN HOOD, HISTORICAL ACCURACY & BOOKISH MEDIEVALISTS

Those of you who have been following  my activity online for a while, are well acquainted with the fact that I am a teacher, that I love my job, that I also run a blog for my students and what I usually do is teaching English as a foreign language or English Literature to Italian students.  What I want  to share and discuss with you today is something which happened to me on LearnOnLine, after posting a lesson  with video clips taken from BBC Robin Hood, addressed  to  a group of 15-year-old students to whom I teach grammar and language, as well as to a second group of 16-year-old students to whom I teach grammar and language but also "pills" of literature (from the origins to the Elizabethan Age). 

It was not the first time I used those materials, as I usually don't teach my younger students literature or history in a very academic way. My approach is rather  focused on what teenagers may like more than on the accuracy of information (which I respect as much as I can). I may be wrong, but this is what I generally do. They are not really interested in sound devices or rethoric figures at their age, they hate being forced to memorize facts and dates which they consider useless. They do like stories, legends, heroes and myths. They also like when the lesson is not merely listening to the teacher speaking or reading in front of them. That is why I use videos and music, multimedia tasks and sources quite often in my lessons.

That happened also in my lessons about the medieval popular ballads. I don't want to bore you, but I'd like you to understand before I ask you to join me in the discussion.

BOOK BLITZ TOUR - SOUL TAKER BY KAREN MICHELLE NUTT

The book

No soul is safe…

A vampire from the Grim Sith sept is sucking the souls out of young women from the Boston area, but this sinister crime is far worse than a vampire seeking substance. He’s selling the souls to the highest bidder and it seems business is booming.

A vampire, a werewolf and a Necromancer, are a most unlikely team, but Garran, Harrison and Isabella plan on putting a kink in the dubbed Soul Taker’s plans. It’s personal now. One of their friends has fallen victim to the Soul Taker’s charms, but to stop him from hurting anyone else, their efforts may involve raising the dead.

The Importance of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic in Early Life and Beyond

(by guest blogger Pam Johnson) Educational psychologists have stressed the importance of reading, writing and arithmetic for decades. When teachers instill in their students reading, writing and arithmetic skills early on, children demonstrate higher academic achievement and even higher cognitive ability scores years later.

What is Reading?

Reading is often colloquially defined as the process of assimilating new written information. In a broader sense, however, reading is the cognitive skill that involves making sense of symbols and deriving meaning from those symbols. Both reading and writing involve sharing and disseminating information.

Structure of Language

Reading and writing depend on the early acquisition of certain skills. To show high reading proficiency and comprehension, a working knowledge of syntax, diction and semantics is necessary to cultivate early in the schooling process.

PERIOD DRAMA VS PERIOD DRAMA: DA VINCI'S DEMONS - THE VILLAGE

Tom Riley as Leonardo da Vinci

Two new costume series I'm watching, The Village (BBC1) and  Da Vinci's Demons (Fox, Italian Sky TV) epitomize  the difference between the old traditional way to represent history in fiction and the new tendency to spectacularise it  for modern audiences to enjoy it more. I must be old (I am. Enough, at least) or ancient  (Gosh! I really hope I am  not) because I like it much more when it is accurate and traditional. Not that I despise innovation and originality but I tend not to hit it off with HBO's  and especially Starz's  style in producing costume drama. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILL SHAKESPEARE! GREAT BOOK GIVEAWAY

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

The actual date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, but, traditionally, April 23, St George's Day, has been Shakespeare's accepted birthday, and a house on Henley Street in Stratford, owned by William's father, John, is accepted as Shakespeare's birth place. However, the reality is that no one really knows when the great dramatist was born. According to The Book of Common Prayer, it was required that a child be baptized on the nearest Sunday or holy day following the birth, unless the parents had a legitimate excuse. As Dennis Kay proposes in his book Shakespeare:

BOOK BLAST - DAVID'S SONG BY A.R.TALLEY + GIVEAWAY OF $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD OR PAYPAL CASH

Tour Schedule

BOOK BLAST & GIVEAWAY - MOONLIT BY JADIE JONES + WIN A $50 GIFT CARD

 

Moonlit Eighteen-year-old Tanzy Hightower knows horses, has grown up with them on Wildwood Farm. She also knows not to venture beyond the trees that line the pasture. Things happen out there that can’t be explained. Or undone. Worse, no one but she and the horses can see what lurks in the shadows of the woods. When a moonlit ride turns into a terrifying chase, Tanzy is left to question everything, from the freak accident that killed her father to the very blood in her veins. Broken and confused, she turns to Lucas, a scarred, beautiful stranger, and to Vanessa, a charming new friend who has everything Tanzy doesn’t. But why do they seem to know more about her than she knows herself?

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 Praise

"Virginia's trees look like they're burning. Most of them blaze crimson or gold, but some still have a chokehold on their green. I wish they'd give it up already. Leaves are more beautiful when they're dying."

UPCOMING COSTUME MOVIES AND INTRIGUING NEW PROJECTS: ROMEO AND JULIET, SUMMER IN FEBRUARY AND THE INFERNAL DEVICES

I won't miss these upcoming movies  and  I really hope they will be good. They are all set in the past and this is something I've always been charmed by. Good stories set in the past... period movies! What's in this post? A new Romeo and Juliet whose set was near my home but  I unfortunately missed, Summer in February starring Dan Stevens and Dominic Cooper,  as well as a fantasy YA saga set in the Victorian Age - Cassandra Clare's The Infernal Devices - soon to be adapted for the silver screen . 

SHEILA HANCOCK, A JOURNEY TO THE BRONTES' COUNTRY AND INTO HERSELF

Perspectives: The Brilliant Brontes was on ITV  at the end of March and it is still available in streaming on their iPlayer. 

What was really touching while watching it was how deeply the commenter, actor Sheila Hancock,  was connected both with the Brontes and with their works. 

Watch the clip I've added for you below to get an idea. You can feel how moved she is, her voice broken more than once and eyes filled with tears . It is as if she is undertaking an honest journey into herself while visiting the places where the Bronte sisters lived, wrote, dreamt and died.

Impossible not to be  moved by the tragic series of deaths their official biographies are charachterized by, but following Sheila Hancock in her gripping journey to Yorkshire and into herself has been much more than that.

She starts the documentary remembering how much in love she was with Laurence Olivier’s Heathcliff as a young girl and how she felt betrayed when later on she re- read the book Emily Bronte had written.